Update

I wanted to update everyone on our progress toward completing our adoption. Since returning from Russia, we have worked on acquiring the necessary documents for our court dossier. This has been a tedious task as we had to ask people to complete documents which were very foreign to them. For example, a realtor had to write a letter that validated the findings from our home appraisal. Of course, everything has to be notarized and then we have to take the packet to Springfield for apostilling. Then we are able to send to the judge in Kemerovo for review. I found out last night that two more families have received their court dates at the end of this month. That bodes well for our court date as they traveled on their first trips in November and December so hopefully we will go in April or May. I am really looking forward to our summer together to help get on a schedule and coalesce into our new family. I have been thinking a lot lately about how things will be different with the addition of the boys. I am thinking that my tv time will definitely be reduced and I will have to get up earlier in the morning! Chad and I recognize we will never be without children on the weekends, even when the girls are at their dad's house. The last weekend the girls were gone Chad took me to a movie and shopping. It is so hard to not buy a bunch of clothing and toys for the boys. We already hit up the consignment store and bought some long sleeved clothing but now I am thinking we may have been premature in that since it will definitely be spring-like by the time we get the boys home! Even so, if we are in Siberia in May with the boys it will still be cool in the mornings and evenings. This week I found a video that I did not realize we had from our trip. The video has Chad operating the camera initially but Ruslan goes over to him to see what he is doing. Ruslan then becomes the videographer with Chad providing commentary. Chad says "there's Pasha" to which Ruslan says "Pasha". Then I come into the frame and Chad says "there's Mama"; Ruslan responds in kind with "Mama". I am oblivious to what they are initially doing so I bend over with my back to the camera. Chad then says "there's Mama's backside" and Ruslan stays true to the pattern with "Mama baasi/backside". It was a real treasure to find the unknown video as it puts me back into that moment of visiting with the boys almost a month ago. We pray that we are back with Ruslan and Pasha soon!